I have some concerns about the UI going to be used in Skyrim for pc. There are 3 key thing that will improve the UI with out making things worse for others that did not have any issues with past UI's, less load times,more hotkeys(map and journal specifically) and more information on screen. Based on what we know so far and things Beth has done in there two most recent games I am worried about these 3 main concerns.

Many of the new articles said many positive things about the UI manly that it was beautiful, but beautiful is not the point. Function is, it will only take a few hours to get use to how cool it looks, and then function will be all that matters. Look at Fallout for example, at first I thought oh cool I am looking at my pip boy neat. But after a few hours only its flaws did I notice. Only half the screen was used for the UI. It took a half second to load because of the animation were you have to look at your wrist, unlike the instant UI with MW or close to that with OB. So when you had to go into your UI, to check you map there was a short load time, same on exit. Going in and out of you UI multiple times in a short period was very annoying because of this delay.

Also, There was not a single button to access your quests or the map,the F keys only getting you closer at times, not always right to were you wanted to go, so there was a lot of unnecessary button pressing. OB has similar issues. And because of the wasted screen space and use of a list view instead of a grid view, there was a lot of scrolling needed to see everything and this is with DarnUI Mod installed. Speaking of mods that was the worse part of FO UI because of its special look it was not moddable to the extent OB's was, were a grid system(or better list view if you prefer that) could be added and the map could be expanded to use the screen space much better, unlike Fallout.

Now again with Skyrim, there may be a delay in acsessing the UI i.e instead of looking at your wrist like the pip boy you look at the sky or the ground, a wasted half second and very annoying when your going back and forth between your map,etc, its sounds like because of the imbedded menus that the screen space might not be used well(I.e you won't be able to see very much information at one time), and we don't know yet if there will be a one button hotkey for the map and journal like MW, both are things needed to be accessed all the time.
I play on a pc, pc's use windows, which can be resized to your needs, MW had a pc interface. That was simple and did the job(tough it had some issues as well). I don't mind a nice looking UI, things like the Total War style map sound neat, but I worry that the fancy look will just impede usability like Fallouts Pip-Boy UI did, I don't know yet if SR will do that, but Beth's recent track record is not good on pc UI's. I hope I am wrong.

Right now I don't know enough to judge, I am just expressing my concerns.
What do you pc users think of what they have heard or about the trend Beth has been on since MW for User Interface's?

I am noticing something interesting, most people agree that longer load times are worse than shorter ones, that removing hotkeys is a bad idea and more information on screen is a good idea. There has yet to be a person that seem to disagree with the concept in principle, only those that don't care or are not bothered by such things. If this is the case, then it would be good to see these idea taken into consideration by Beth. As the players that currently don't care won't be affect and most that do could end up with a better UI. Beside that UI mods are very popular and even Beth themselves have admitting to having problems with the pc UI.

Did our conversation spark this? Hopefully you pc players will have a UI that suits your needs.

Where is that guy with the awesome Sig


Todd Howard: we wondered how would it look if Apple made a game with its UI?

Person in question: I Don't care how it looks, how does it function!

As a PC only gamer I'm expecting it to look great visually as has been stated and seen, but I'm expecting navigation to be a major pain in the bleep with little utility built in just like any other console UI ported to PC. The OB PC UI and controls were a mess, I'm not expecting much to be different this time around, as the PC seems to be at best an after thought at this point. I'd be delighted to be wrong in the end, but I'm going with the safe bet on this topic.

I have agreed with Beth on almost every decision they have made regarding Skyrim(or at least been neutral), I am so excited for this game, its going to be so awesome. But there has been one thing that has nagged me from when I first heard about SR, the UI. Then I started playing FNV and the UI thing issues were just so absurd to me. So this has been brewing for a few months, are back and forth finally prompted me to make a thread, I don't make treads too often. Unless I feel I can start a worthwhile discussion. And I thought this was worth whiled.

I absolutely agree, it annoyed the hell of out me having to constantly go back and forth between the different tabs in OB. MW had a system where you could acces everything instantly.... now it looks as if its going to be even worse with ONE item or skill focused one at a time, PC gamers really really need a UI that takes advantage of the mouse and keyboard. We do not need a UI that only allows left right movement, we can easily click anywhere on the screen, so PLEASE give us a darn instant map and inventory hotkey, thank you.

I find it sad that Todd was talking about the iTunes feature where you scan back and forth between the album covers. A lot of the articles have also badmouthed the use of lists. But when I use iTunes, I use just that, the list.

Why do I use the list? Easy, it presents all the information I need in a way easy to read and it can be reorganized. If I know the name of the song, I organize it by song. If the name starts with a letter from the second half of the alphabet, then I organize it in reverse alphabetical. Say I don't remember the name, but I know the album? Well, I organize it by album. Same for artist or genre.

I've rather hated the FNV UI. If you want any info on any object, you have to click it. That means you can't easily compare attributes between items without clicking back and forth.

On top of that, just like with the OB UI, not very much is presented on the screen at once. That makes for a lot of scrolling just to find what I need.

Those UIs might look good, but their functionality is crap. And I'm scared to think that Todd might be basing the design of the Skyrim UI on a crap feature of iTunes.

Speaking of the UI, did anyone else think Oblivion's looked incredibly childish, with the cartoony hearts and feathers and minimalist item stats and descriptions?
I'm afraid we'll be getting more of the same with Skyrim :\

It annoyed the hell of me when I recently played FNV, at first not so bad, then at the 10 hours mark, why is there not just a quest hotkey, 20 hour mark, arrrghhh!. Before long I would just hope I was going in the right direction instead of having to go the round about route to check my map.

I'm very concerned about this as well. I liked Morrowind's UI where I could have access to everything instantly, and the inventory windows were scalable to my liking.

Oblivion and Fallout 3 (and New Vegas') UIs were horrible for PC.
Oblivion's UI was especially bad because it lacked keybinds for "okay", "cancel" etc, and I had to navigate mostly by mouse.
Fallout 3's UI had more keybinds, but it also had that animation, and the layout was just as horrible as the Oblivion UI. One of the worst things was the text, it wasn't scalable and was obliviously made for console-users with low-res TV screens.

I hope Skyrim will have an UI more suited for the PC, with hotkeys for the map, inventory, journal etc, and that I can access it instantly without going through an animation.

What with Todd's Apple comparisons, I'd consider it almost a certainty.

Look at the new versions of Windows, that use Aero(I think thats what its called, I always turn it off) thats a fancy UI that is at least designed for pc. If there going to go the fancy route at least use fancy PC based UI. Not UI designed for some mobile device with a tiny screen and 5 buttons.

I honeslty dont know where dev's got the idea that console UI's are acceptable for a PC release... they really aren't, but I guys these days we should be thankful for every game that even comes to the PC *glares angrily at rockstar*

Well we know we have our own unique UI, I think he means he hopes there isn't a delay when opening the menu when it pulls back or peers up. I think it will be a very short delay if anything and a half second delay imo isn't a problem. If half a second is too much for someone, then they are incredibly impatient.

So you are for loading times? I thought you got that SSD to get rid of those? Did you read my post? There was a lot more than just the delay that I had concerns with. You as a pc thought OB and FO3 had good UI's?

Also see my reply to Burke below, about the half second.

I had no problems with the pip boy... except maybe the resolution of text.

And I liked the list over Morrowind's grid system, where you had to hover over the item to figure out what is that, while on a list it already lists the name and its stats. Also it had a weird way of categorizing things.

So you think that not using 50% of the screen made sense? You feel that losing the hotkey for the map and quests was also a good decision? The load time for the UI did not bother you? I do see your point regarding the grid system I do not see that as strictly better. Unlike that other things I mentioned.

Here is an interesting thought experiment. Imagine all the interface options on your pc, shorts cuts, file,edit all that, took an extra half second everytime you need to use them. So you want to click to see what is on the other tab in your browser, that an extra half second, want to go to file, open,quit whatever, thats a half second. Just think about that.

From what I've heard I'd guess the game doesn't pause when you open the UI for things like inventory, so if you are trying to grab something from your inventory during combat that half second might make a great deal of difference.

Didn't really bothered me the whole 50% bit, in fact I barely noticed it.
Instead of hotkeys I always just closed the menu at the map and quest tab, so the next time I opened it, I saw the map/quest instantly.
The load time didn't bother me either, it was 1 second at best, it's not like I'm in a hurry or something.

So I can only use the mouse?
...

Nope, still doesn't bother me.

EDIT:

I'm pretty sure you've heard it wrong. It would be really annoying if the game wouldn't stop while you're looking at the sky, standing still and defenceless.

If there was half a second of loading time for the menu to transition, it's not really affecting me when I have something to look at as it transitions, not saying it is going to do transitioning though. Also, OB and FO3 had menus that were roughly based on the console version, Todd said that they are building a completely new UI for the PC version, which makes it more fluid for the PC (though I never had any issue with Oblivion's UI for the PC.)



Well there hasn't been any info about whether or not the inventory pauses or not when you open it but if it didn't pause (which I believe it does pause) then they definitely wouldn't add in a transition. I'm just saying, if they did have a transition and it's half a second, if someone really is so impatient that they can't wait .5 seconds, it is beyond the realm of needing patience. I wouldn't even say you need patience for it since it is so minute of a time span, you don't even need patience to wait the half a second. Now if it was a second or two, I'd be more inclined to be annoyed if I have to open the menu multiple times but if I have to open the menu 5 times in a minute, then that's 2.5 seconds out of that minute, definitely nothing to scoff at. That's just my thought on it.

Considering that every single possible problem ever floated on the forums has had mods floated as a solution in flagrant disregard for the console community, I'm going to say that the PC community can svck it up and use mods to fix a problem that only affects them.

What? so because we happen to have mods,we're not allowed to want a game that is suited for the PC vanilla? are you kidding me?

Well if people will insist on suggesting mods as a solution to every problem in, as I said, flagrant disregard for the console community, then why would I be kidding?

In fact it's remarkable that a thread about a problem that exclusively negatively affects the PC version of the game hasn't yet had mods put out there as the go-to fix.

Err... I feel like the majority of PC players here are firm believers in 'mods are not there to fix, but to enhance.' CAN they fix? Of course they can. But that's not their actual purpose.

The people suggesting mods to fix anything that should be in the vanilla game are *insert insult*'s but just because those clowns suggest such nonsense, doesn't mean the rest of us should rely on mods to have an enjoyable game.